New Delhi: The Taliban claimed to have captured Afghanistan’s second largest city, Kandahar, which is a major win for the militants. Following this, there is a spurt in reports of forced marriage and killing in the region on Friday, media report revealed.
The terror group is now forcing women to get married to its terrorists and executing captured soldiers and unprovoked attacks in civilians by the Taliban, a media report said.
The city was Taliban’s stronghold and was strategically important for the government.
Militants occupied the area after a heavy clash with local authorities in Kandahar city,” a local government official said. Kandahar is the latest city to fall, after Herat and Ghazni.
Meanwhile, the United States has assured the local government to send about 3,000 troops back into Afghanistan to help evacuate staff from the American embassy. The UK is deploying about 600 troops on a short term basis to provide support to British nationals leaving the country.
The Taliban have focussed their offensive on the north, a region they never fully controlled during their 1996-2001 rule, and the heartland of Northern Alliance forces who marched into Kabul with U.S. support in 2001, the Reuters agency said adding that the Taliban also claimed to have captured Lashkar Gah in the south and Qala-e-Naw in the northwest